Photo: Bill Connington as Quentin P., serial killer, with his favorite ice pick (photographer Tony David)
What are we to make of "Zombie," a one-actor piece about Quentin P., the queer sadistic sexual-psychopathic murderer who yearned to create a zombie who would obey him without question by performing home-made lobotomies with an icepick rammed up through his victims' eye-sockets? "Zombie" is in that genre of theatre that uses the stage for the case-study of a psychological/psychotic condition (think "Equus"), in the hope of (in this order) titillating the audience through voyeurism and, perhaps, shedding some explanatory light on the "abnormal" (i.e., people not like the audience members). But a script is not a case-study, imagination is not the same as the DSM-IV, and two-hours-with-intermission does not substitute for therapy. Inevitably the interpretive effort must always deliver less than it promises because, one, the audience is always more interested in titillation than explanation and, two, explanation can never be dramatic (think of how all those CSI shows try to tart up the lab tests with music and camera-work so that people won't switch the channel). Well, then, if by the end of "Zombie" Quentin P. is still an unsolved riddle, what about the quality of the performance itself? Again, "Zombie" delivers less than it promises. Directed by "Mamma Mia!" resident director Thomas Caruso, with set by Josh Zangen, lighting by Joel Silver, and sound by Deidre Broderick, Connington chooses to present Quentin as a sort of button-down nerd, with owl-eye-styled brown-rim glasses, slicked down combover, chinos, and a short-sleeve shirt who speaks in slow, upper-Midwest-themed accent. All this is meant to contrast with the viciousness of his anecdotes about using the trash of society as his experiments in zombie-making. Connington does well enough, though several line-flubs and Caruso's advice to play Quentin with only the slightest hint of animation drain off most of the story's vigor and danger. But the choice to adapt this as a monologue is also partly to blame for the slightly soporific quality of the production. No matter if the actor is talking to a stuffed dummy (the only "zombie" Quentin is able to create) or to the audience or to the air, the stage lacks a second center of gravity around which the dramatic action can orbit. In addition, almost all the "action" in the piece is told in retrospect, not shown in the present tense, and so the piece becomes something more for the ear than the eye. Finally, Connington just does not offer the kind of performance that turns the dialectic between the outward dweeb and the inner monster into a memorable hour upon the stage. "Zombie" unfortunately feels too much like its title.
Michael Bettencourt
